Friday, October 18, 2013

Of course I've known that the Dodgers have not reached the World Series since 1988. I mean, everyone knows that. And I knew that it's been a while, of course. But the time gets away from you (or at least from me)...I hadn't quite realized how long it's been.

What I realized just now is that they're getting real, real, close to the gap the Giants had between 1962 and 1989.

Fine, Dodgers fans; I'm quite aware that there are differences involved, beginning with the outcomes of 1962 and 1988. I'm aware that the Dodgers never went through anything similar to what the Giants did in 1972-1985. I'm aware that the 1989 World Series was less than a complete triumph.

Still, I'm also aware -- that's an understatement -- that not only have the Giants won the World Series in 2010 and 2012, but also that the Giants have been to the World Series four times since 1988.

Hey: I was born after that 1962 series, and while I do remember 1971 and the Hall of Famers, I mostly grew up with the embarrassment of a franchise they were after that, until Will Clark and all showed up. While the Dodgers were winning often, and good the rest of the time. So I'll still take my enjoyment where I can.

Nothing to add, other than that the Cardinals are really quite a team and quite an organization.

8 comments:

Funny, reflecting on a quarter-century of Giants history, it occurs to me there should be a place for the '93 team. Sure, they didn't win anything (and as it happened, neither did the Braves - at least not anything important), but man, was there ever a more beautiful group of losers than the '93 Giants?

Isn't the real difference that, from 1962-1989, the Giants only made the NLCS once, while the Dodgers have been in the NLCS three times since their last WS appearance? That is what really makes the Cubs' drought so bad -- not only haven't they been in the WS for eons, but they have very rarely come close. And, of course, there are many teams with longer droughts than the Dodgers.

PS: You realize, don't you, that the only people who care about the Giants-Dodgers rivalry are Giants fans; Dodgers fans don't really care.

The Cardinals benefit from experience in the post-season but most of all they've been lucky with their very young pitchers, specifically Wacha. He stopped the Pirates when they had the momentum though by the end of the game they were just one big swing from winning it all, and he shut down the Dodgers twice. It's a truism but it's true: the team that peaks in post-season for whatever reasons is hard to beat. We saw that in the last two Giants world championships.

I'll take partial issue with your "lucky" comment. I was born in 1955, the year our neighbor, Ken Boyer, became the Cardinals third baseman. Some luck is required no doubt, but these young pitchers (6 rookies on the playoff staff) are the product of a system of selection and training that works. The rookie closer, Rosenthal, for instance was a college shortstop with a total of less than 5 innings of pitching experience when he was drafted. It is a common practice for the Cardinals to draft non-pitchers and train them to be pitchers.

As a Cubs fan, I've been waiting for the bottom to fall out of the Cardinals pitching staff for years, and it never seems to happen (Sidney Ponson, for crying out loud). Luck is always involved, but I have to admit they are shockingly good at evaluating and developing pitchers.

Yep, this year they lost 4 of last year's 5 staring pitchers and one rookie replacement, Gast. They lost last year's closer, Motte, then last year's 8th inning guy, Boggs, who once again couldn't handle closing and was traded. Last year's 7th inning guy, Mujica, was worn down by closing until he couldn't pitch effectively any more. Yet next year they'll start camp with 8-10 pitchers who deserve to be starters. It's ridiculous.

I was thinking about your last Friday baseball post, the part about sabermetrically-challenged announcers, watching the Tigers-Sawx tonight. Joe Buck is pretty well-regarded, it seems, and if he's not especially sharp, he's certainly young and hipster enough to carry the semblance of sabermetric cred.

Tonight Buck was laying out the challenge facing the Tigers. In that Joe*Buck*is*gonna* BLOW*YOUR*MIND tone, he awe-inspiredly noted that 18 teams in LCS history have gone on the road down 3-2, and only 4 emerged victorious!

Course, as the stats guys surely know, if you hold an LCS with a fair quarter in your change jar, and heads takes a 3-2 lead, there's a 25% chance that tails will come back to 'win' 4-3. Repeat that 18 times and tails will come back, oh, something like 4-5 times.

I do enjoy listening to Joe Buck. I think it helps if you try not to think too much about what he's saying.